I’ve been interested in the business of business for as long as I can remember. Even though my academic training was in computer science, and I broke into working life as an engineer, I always focused on how business value is created, protected, and leveraged. On what works and what doesn’t. On how big wins come to be. That interest, combined with my grounding in technology, has shaped my entire career. A summary of that follows.
Operating Roles
Symbol Technologies
I joined Symbol as its fifth employee in 1978, and served there for 26 years, over which time we grew from a raw start-up to a $1.7B revenue S&P 500 public company, with market cap pushing $4B. I held roles of steadily increasing responsibility, advancing from software engineer to Vice Chairman and CEO. Our accomplishments included:
- Invention of the hand held laser scanner, 2D bar code, scanner-integrated computer, and (10 years before it became know as such) the technology we now call WiFi
- Becoming the clear thought and market share leader in bar code scanning, ruggedized mobile computing, and wireless LAN product categories
- Winner of the National Medal of Technology
- Holder of over 750 US Patents
Intelleflex
While serving as Chairman, CEO, and President of this Silicon Valley start-up working at the cutting edge of RFID technology, I raised over $38M in venture capital financing, and structured major commercial partnerships with Boeing and Motorola.
NCR
As VP, Corporate Development and CMO, I directed a major re-branding initiative that led to the company’s current positioning around delivering breakthrough customer experience solutions.
Pivot3
As President and CEO, led this converged storage / compute appliance company over a period when we grew revenues from $17M to $31M, expanded gross margins by 1300 basis points, while cutting operating expenses by 20%. During this same period, we re-established strategic focus on the company’s core business, and re-built relationships around the security industry ecosystem.
Affinity Solutions
First as an outside advisor, and since May of 2013 as COO, I’ve helped to shape and roll out our “Data Analytics as a Service” strategy, which is opening up new high growth, high margin, recurring revenue streams for this leader in marketing technology solutions.
Independent Board Roles
Fiberlink
I served as an independent board member of this leader in Mobile Device Management solutions starting in 2002 (the last three years as chairman). Following two successful strategic pivots in this dynamic industry, the company was acquired by IBM in 2013, in a transaction that delivered an industry-leading platform to IBM, and very attractive returns to Fiberlink’s investors.
Nomadix
I served as independent board member of this leader in wireless hot spot solutions to the hospitality industry, through to its acquisition by a major telecommunications company in Asia.
Cognio
I served as the independent board member of this WiFi technology company, through its successful strategic sale to Cisco.
Motion Computing
I currently serve as an independent member on the board of this pioneering leader in ruggedized tablet computing solutions.